Attend CD Lecture(3–4pm EST). Zoom link in CD App. Respond with a critique of the lecture and position it in the context of contemporary design culture(200 words).
Name
Response
Paul
Claire
I completely agree with Helen’s take on Keller’s lecture. If I had seen Keller’s work stand alone without listening to this lecture first I would have had a good understanding of her core values and what kinds of projects she takes on. Most of her lecture was incomprehensible to me along with the graphics she choose to use. To the point where I was doubting my own media literacy. Reflecting on her lecture I thought more about the elitism within higher education and academia. There is the debate that explaining concepts in a simpler way where anyone can understand shows greater understanding of the topic. I tend to agree more with that side of the debate even though I find myself speaking in a non-welcoming way often. This isn't a critique of her understanding but rather how this type of education isn't effective and just perpetuates a toxic educational environment. Aside from that I really admire her work and the things she tackles in her design, she and I have many interests that overlap and similar perspectives on many social issues. Keller is a designer for other designers/academics rather than for the public, and I guess looking back at it there is nothing wrong with that.
Yee Fang(Liz)
Camila
I found interesting her ideas of interplay, connectivity, and dependencies found in society and translated to design. I liked her thinking of design as something that finds ways to link disconnected things. I noticed an interesting fluidity in her design thinking, which I think is a reaction to the abundance, complexity and variety of the issues she studies. That fluidity also supports her intention of making design that isn’t obstructive, and endures time and change. Even though it was very hard to follow overall, her lecture focused on presenting us a way of design thinking, an approach, rather than a design or a thing itself. She focused on the way she thinks of the world, and how the connections and disconnections should become the design. Although, examples of her work would’ve helped to see how she applies all those observations and language into design and production.
Hana
Avery
Keller’s lecture was a pretty intimidating rendition of the lecture series, but also offers a completely different approach to design that I definitely didn’t anticipate seeing. Her attempt to reframe design in these larger socioeconomic scales was overwhelming and felt disconnected to me, however as she flips through examples I see similar structures of thought to that of what we go through in thesis. It just shows how far our ideas and applications can go and diverge from the common narrative. I appreciated her approach to quick fix, individual vehicles and how she reframed the problem/solution; she manages to connect the design perspective to these large questions. Though I don’t relate much to Keller, I think it opens my mind to what my career will look like down the road and which directions my design mentality will go. If I were to see her talk again, I’d like some more narrative and insight into how she transitioned to this state or how we can apply this to where we are as graduating students. It was quite isolating and the string of examples and metaphors were best comprehensible to me with subtitles. I would’ve left with less if I had only saw it live.
Ashley
Keller mentions a lot about social issues within politics, but I found it quite hard to follow and hard to understand what Keller Easterling was talking about. She does show a lot of interest in the process of her work and you can see her passion through her lecture. However, it is confusing on what she’s trying to show through her work. The projects themselves weren’t very clear to me and it was hard to understand what she was trying to explain. I don’t particularly have a favorite within her designs. When I saw her work and the way she was explaining the process, it only reminded me of other artists who create designs because they“have” to not“want” too.
Weihe(Leanne)
I think there’s a lot really deep ideas and information to gain in Keller’s lecture and it’s really novel to look design from a totally different perspective from environment, political and economy, which isn’t what I would normally know. However, I was a little bit lost during the lecture especially from the beginning that I wasn’t quite understand the knowledge when she was referring to this larger scale of things in the world. However, I think the idea of connection and chain reaction in design is interesting that when she said design isn’t about one solid solution, but it’s about how you push it and how the in-between things react with each out through the process. I think this is why design is fascinating that you have a general idea to start one thing, but the outcome sorts of having an unpredictable chances when things affect each other during the process.
Yiwen(Lindy)
The first thing that I noticed is that Easterling has a very spectacular perspective of the world, habitat, and integrated environment. This is seen through the images that she uses to explain her making process and her interest. One can tell that her unique way of designing is closely related to the amount of articles or books that she has read and a lot of critical thinking. Her idea of combining problems instead of segregating problems really expands minds in terms of design. My most important takeaway is that she encourages risk taking, expand design thinking, think outside cultural norm and most importantly, embrace problems and create new. She puts emphasis on the importance of being to some degree rebellious towards modern branding and commercial rules.
Patrick
I appreciate that Keller Easterling, in the end, doesn’t betray her own advice. Rather than offering solutions she offers an approach, much like the pool example. Her response to the“spectrum of evils” is an ethical disposition—in the sense that it is more about how to think or position oneself rather than what to do—and I think that design needs more of this. I think we need more“solutions” that are contextual and fluent in the“vernacular” or local. In my opinion, I think graphic design is really limited in what it can do to“change the world.” Easterling’s phrase“medium design” is a helpful framework for thinking about how design might actually play a role in societal or political change. Rather than the typical transactional model of designer and client, medium design shifts our vision to the“water” that we all swim in. Rather than focusing on solving every problem, design can focus more on arranging problems and needs and becoming a platform for communal autonomy in meeting needs and solving problems. Personally, I wonder how this all applies to communication/graphic design. Architecture has a concept of programming for spaces, built environments as constructions that house human activity. Built environments and technologies also house our graphic designs. Do we have to“spatialize” graphic design before we can better understand how Easterling’s concepts translate to it? Graphic design can’t do the same things for a society that urban design can, for example. In what ways can communication design shape the“milieu”? I find it hard to see the answer as it seems like graphic design, to be effective—to do something—, relies on common language and communication rules. I feel more inclined to say that graphic design relies on politics, economy, culture, etc. to shape the common language of societies rather than that it has its own power to create and shape its own common language. Finally, Easterling’s statement that the correlative thinking of designers needs to have more authority and position in the world along with other disciplines reminds me of the approach of the Artist Placement Group of 1960s London. I do wish that thoughtful designers were taken more seriously.
Helen
Although I did not understand most of Keller’s lecture I think after looking at her design work and contributions on her website I kind of understand what she talked about a little better I guess? I think it is a little ironic that she is studying these systems that enforce disadvantages to marginalized people, yet the language and vernacular she speaks with and writes with on her website is so difficult to read, pronounce, and understand. She is brilliant at what she does but her work seems to exist in very elitist contexts of academic journals and exhibitions at biennales. Many of the exhibitions she has contributed to, for example, are housed in these white box galleries. I wonder how much she has thought about her contribution to the issues she may be addressing. I wish she would have discussed her works she shared in terms of goals and design this a little more because the work she has on her website is super impressive.
Disha
I found Keller’s lecture incredibly difficult to follow. While I liked the direction a lot of her ideas seemed to be heading in - solving issues caused by power dynamics within social, political, and economic spheres, and how to form links between design, innovation and these issues to help disadvantaged groups - I wish she focused more on her work and how she has used these links to solve issues throughout her career, rather than giving abstract and philosophical explanations of design in general. I also completely agree with what Helen has said ^
Alisa
I enjoyed Keller Easterling’s talk because of her interesting perspective of the environment. Her interest that comes out of her process is heavily inspired around her personal narrative and interests. It actually reminded me of the critical thinking process we learned in ARS. Her ability to tactically approach issues is very interesting in terms of the design process. I enjoy her outcomes of design and additionally is makes it even more important and unique by the way she approaches the design process. Her importance and morals in design are against the grain and special towards her ethos.
Jiayi(Cassie)
Allison
I appreciated Keller’s approach to design while thinking outside of a client-based language to incorporate discussion surrounding politics, social issues, design activism, etc. Her lecture brought up a lot of content surrounding heavy topics, but I found it a bit difficult to follow as I was hoping to see more of her work and how she has applied this way of design thinking into her work. Despite this, I still liked hearing about her approach to design and incorporating links to the world and larger social issues that would inform the design itself.
Xinyi(Vella)
Keller’s lecture really contains quite a lot social situations related to politics, whiteness, capitalism, technology, etc. It was hard for me to completely follow through the whole lecture, but also really impressive that Keller is devoted to design practice with such deep and profound topics. One thing she mentioned in the lecture is about figuring out what is right is not always the most important thing, but rather figure out the surroundings and the concerns. She also states that social media information is originally built for people to share more information with each other and to gain knowledges from it, but nowadays the“like/thumbs up system” makes the almost everything flowed through this guideline and make things get back to boredom. This is quite an interesting point to consider about, and I assume that’s why nowadays people become more careful about sharing regular thoughts online to avoid unnecessary hurt by unknown web-surfing users. Instead of mainly focusing on the design perspective, Keller’s project is more about its topic and the deep logical foundation underneath. Lots of current society’s political events and the fast development of capitalism with its negative side of influences was talked in Keller’s lecture. It was really a brain-consuming time for listening but definitely bring some new perspectives for me think more about.
Design Culture
Reminders
9:15am: Small-Group Meetings